Richie has been through the Nadir point and hopefully is coming out the other side. His white blood cell count, although not normal, is on its way up. He's still having problems with mucous tissue inflammation and with a few mouth sores, but those are healing up. He's certainly better than he was when last I wrote here...sorry about being remiss about keeping up the updates.
Tomorrow is Richie's birthday. We are both confident there will be many more to come. It's 10 days past his "second birthday" as some people with multiple myeloma refer to the day they get their stem cells back in an SCT. While we won't go so far as to say this is like being reborn, (after all he was born right the first time!) this is definitely a turning point.
I have to go back to the Valley tomorrow to grab a few things I forgot (3 hours there, 3 hours back, oy gevalt...) but I intend to be back later in the day and spend the rest of his birthday with him.
I wonder if I can get him cake. Or something. He has the keyboard, at least, and that delighted him...thanks Tom. Thanks also to Bruce for visiting and bringing a few CDs for Richie's listening pleasure. Thanks to all who have been calling and emailing and generally rooting for him. We appreciate it. A lot.
